For the last decade or more, most major webpages have been
designed to be dynamic — they rely on a complicated system of
code and databases to offer a super-interactive experience.
Facebook's site, for example, relies on a complex system
based largely on PHP and other "server-side" programming
languages.

The problem with these dynamic sites is that complexity often
brings a whole new set of headaches: All of that code can be slow
to load, plus all the various moving parts leave bigger gaps for
bad guys to potentially sneak in. It requires a lot of
management, but it's just the tradeoff for building modern
websites.

Now, some developers are finding that there might be a better
way — "static" websites, with less code and fewer
components. These "static" sites load faster, are more secure,
and can handle more visitors. And thanks to some advancements in
web technology, the tradeoffs for a static site are fewer than
ever before.

Which takes us to Netlify, a
startup that's trying to spark this revolution by making it
easier than ever for programmers to build a static website. Over
the last two years, Netlify has attracted over 100,000 developers
at companies like Facebook, Google, and NBC.

Today, Netlify announced that it's raised $12 million in new
investment capital in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Peter Levine, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, is joining the
startup's board of directors.

The goal is nothing less than changing how websites are built
entirely: "This should be the default," says Netlify co-founder
Christian Bach.

Dynamic past

Bach and his cofounder Mathias Biilmann are old friends who
actually grew up together in Denmark. Both of them entered the
world of web development in the 2000s, and both of them quickly
got disillusioned with the state of website development.

"I was really suffering from the issues of the legacy web," says
Bach.

All of the headaches of building dynamic websites were getting
worse, not better, he says. Websites were getting bigger and
slower, with more effort needed to ride herd on them.

Andreeseen Horowitz
general partner Peter LevineYouTube/Gigaom

Over the last few years, though, things have changed. The rise of
companies like
Stripe and
Twilio meant that companies no longer had to build their own
systems for accepting payments or sending text messages on their
websites; they just had to pay for a subscription and "snap"
those services into their sites.

The net effect is that websites don't need to carry so much
baggage anymore. A site can just be a bunch of basic HTML — which
loads faster and is more secure — and still offer all
the bells and whistles. In recognition of this trend,
Biilmann and Bach formed Netlify, and created
the solution to their own biggest problem.

Static cling

What Netlify, specifically, does, is let programmers deploy their
static websites from their existing code with just a click. And
when the website goes up, it's hosted on what's called a "content
delivery network," (CDN) the same kind of system that Netflix and
Amazon use to make their videos load lightning-fast.

Netlify has a CDN of its own design, intended to make sure these
sites load as quickly as possible. Better yet, developers can get
started for free.

Peter Levine, the Andreessen Horowitz general partner joining the
Netlify board, says that in many ways, what Netlify offers is the
"holy grail of web development and application
development."

It's easy for developers to use, easy for them to make changes to
their sites, and provides way better performance than the
established way of doing things. Developers are already taking
advantage of this "microservices approach," Levine praises
Netlify for simplifying that process.

As far as business model, co-founder
Biilmann says that the plan is to keep
marketing Netlify to developers: "You sort of acquire them like
consumers, but they spend like enterprise," he says.